


History Has Its Eyes On You

by taispeantas_laethuil



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Casting Hijinks, Hamilton Fusion, Historians, M/M, Public Radio, Screenplay/Script Format, musical theater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6462946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taispeantas_laethuil/pseuds/taispeantas_laethuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA DORIAN: The Musical</p><p>Dorian Pavus' contributions to history were largely forgotten... until one man decided to make a musical about his life, and it was a runaway success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man Of The Hour

HARDING: Hello! I’m Lindsay Harding, and you’re listening to TPR. Today, the first of a three-part special detailing the major musical phenomenon _Dorian_. It sounds crazy, from the onset: the story of the Inquisition and the Tevinter Reformation, told in contemporary hip-hop style, and utilizing a startlingly diverse cast. This all before you consider that Dorian Pavus is not the most notable of names attached to either happening.  
  
ACLASSI: Growing up in Tevinter, Dorian Pavus was always the guy that got stabbed by the last pre-Reform Archon on the steps of the Magisterium. When I went to school in Val Royeaux, I took a history course centered around the Dragon Age, and there I learned of him as the Inquisition’s ‘good Tevinter’.  
  
HARDING: That’s Manolo Aclassi, an up-and-coming writer and producer, and the mind behind _Dorian_. He wrote and directed the musical, and he also stars as its title character.  
  
ACLASSI: It stuck out to me, because there was such a disconnect. Everyone knows that Lavellan’s Inquisition is connected to the Reformation, but it was always presented as an ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation. The Qunari hated the Inquisition, and had been fighting Tevinter for over a century. After Corypheus, the next target Lavellan focused on was the Dread Wolf- who was also not a fan of Tevinter. And most important of all, there were the Venatori: who were a major part of Corypheus’ power base, and therefore responsible for the start of the Second Inquisition, and Inquisitor Lavellan’s rise to power. But no one had ever said anything about a member of the Lucerni- a _founding_ member- actually having joined the Inquisition, let alone had been such a major player. And I wanted to know more about that guy.  
  
HARDING: That desire fueled several years worth of research. While _Dorian_ pulls most strongly from Tethras’ fifteen-volume magnum opus detailing the lives of those most heavily involved in the Inquisition-  
  
ACLASSI: His book was eight hundred pages long- similar in length to the volumes about Cassandra Pentaghast, or Divine Victoria.  
  
HARDING: - he also drew upon historical texts in biographies from everywhere from Fereldan to Antiva to Tevinter.  
  
ACLASSI: Once I knew about this- about what a character he was- I knew there was a great story here.  
  
HARDING: _Dorian_ certainly is that.

[[[COMMERCIAL BREAK]]]

HARDING: Welcome back to the first of our three-part special about _Dorian_ , the musical phenomenon which had just started its international tour of Thedas. The play opened to overwhelmingly positive reviews last spring, and its soundtrack has topped the charts for three months running.  
  
[PRE-RECORDED CLIP: “YOU’LL BE BACK”]  
TEVINTER CHORUS: You’ll be back/ soon you’ll see/ you know exactly who you’re meant to be.  
  
HARDING: The play is a biography, set against the Second Inquisition and the Tevinter Reformation, focused upon the eponymous Dorian Pavus, whose contributions have been largely neglected in popular perception of history- something which makes its refrain of “history has its eyes on you” bitingly ironic.  
  
ACLASSI: I am absolutely certain that Dorian would want his story told with a great deal of sarcasm.  
  
HARDING: The play’s focus on Dorian Pavus is intense- indeed, for the first act of the play, it often seems like he’s both the protagonist and antagonist in the absence of other personalities to oppose him. Corypheus is never seen, only heard, his voice distorted through a voice modulator, and almost always backed up by a large chorus of Venatori. The Dread Wolf is an ally throughout most of the act, and the conflict between himself and the Inquisition is treated by the play as one more with Lavellan than the rest of the world. Archon Senuthis, who might be the most obvious candidate for the role, is largely absent from Act I. His cameo appearance, during the heartrending musical number “The Room Where It Happens”, paints him as just as much a victim of the Imperium’s stifling expectations as Dorian himself.  
  
[PRE-RECORDED CLIP: “THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS”]  
HALWARD: If you could only come to realize-  
DORIAN: Did you just come to spout convenient lies?  
HALWARD: I did it for you! Can’t you try to see-  
DORIAN: You did it you- for your legacy!

HARDING: “The Room Where It Happens is a show-stopping number, and perhaps the one where the focus on Dorian feels almost transgressive in how complete it is. The eponymous room refers to several rooms, each demarcated by a few pieces of furniture and different colored spotlights. The room where Dorian was removed, by force, from the future Archon’s bed is purple. The room where Dorian was called to account for his various misdeeds, ranging from duels to unaccepted liaisons with other men is green. The room where Dorian confronts his father over the planned blood magic ritual is red, suggesting that perhaps things went further that his line “I found out. I left” would otherwise lead the audience to believe. Throughout it all, Halward Pavus stands in the center, brightly light and given no place to hide, as he turns beseechingly to his son, who leaps in a frenzy from spotlight to spotlight- from room to room. Dorian does not seem inclined to let his father finish a sentence, except in flashback, and it’s hard to blame him. The Inquisitor certainly does not. She stays off to the side with Sera and the Iron Bull, watching in horror as the truth is revealed, until the number’s end, when Dorian reminds Halward that they have an audience.  
  
[PRE-RECORDED CLIP: “THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS”]  
DORIAN: At last, someone else is in the room where it happens!  
[The music cuts out abruptly.]  
  
HARDING: For a long moment, the only sound on stage is Dorian’s breathing, which sounds a lot like he’s trying desperately to not cry. And then the Inquisitor crosses the stage to take him by the arm, as the room’s spotlights go out one by one.  
  
[PRE-RECORDED CLIP: “THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS”]  
GREEN SPOTLIGHT: *clicks off*  
PURPLE SPOTLIGHT: *clicks off*  
RED SPOTLIGHT: *clicks off*  
LAVELLAN: Come on. Let’s get you out of here.  
HALWARD: _Dorian_ …  
HALWARD’S SPOTLIGHT: *clicks off*  
  
ACLASSI: People are spoiled for it nowadays, but the first several times we ran the show, people wondered if we had some kind of mechanical failure at the end of that number.  
  
HARDING: It’s almost an anticlimax, after all the emotion- and physical motion- of the preceding five minutes. It was really unsettling.  
  
ACLASSI: Well, that’s what reading about it felt like. There’s no hard evidence that they had any contact after that meeting. As far as we know, that was the last time Dorian spoke with his father. There’s no neat resolution. How could there be, after such a hurt?

HARDING: Welcome back the first of our three-part special about _Dorian_ , the musical phenomenon sweeping all of Thedas.  
  
ACLASSI: The thing you have to understand about Dorian is that he’s a fighter, like, in the same way most of us are breathers. The guy got kicked out of every single Circle in Tevinter for fighting. The first one was at the age of nine. He dueled a fifteen year old, and the other guy had to be carted away from that fight on a stretcher.  
  
HARDING: As a nine year old?  
  
ACLASSI: Yes. Nine. And he just didn’t stop. He fought countless duels, most of which have been lost to history, he fought in three separate wars, and through it all he fought for the chance for his homeland to be redeemed.  
  
HARDING: When it comes to the question of who the antagonist of _Dorian_ is, perhaps it might be best to say that Tevinter itself is what hounds the title character. Or, at least, Tevinter’s _corruption_ , which was running rampant in the pre-Reform years, is Dorian’s ultimate foe. The specter of his home- an empire built over the bones slaves and still, at that time, coasting on their blood- hangs over the first act right from the opening number, where as Dorian explains to Lavellan his reasons for wanting to join the Inquisition, a hooded chorus in magister’s robes intones from the rafters “You’ll Be Back”.  
  
[PRE-RECORDED CLIP: “YOU’LL BE BACK”]  
TEVINTER CHORUS: You’ll be back/you know it’s true/there's so much left here for you to do.  
  
HARDING: Dorian declares his intentions to one day go back to his home, to save it, firm in his belief that it can be saved. It’s the driving force behind the play, and probably why the song receives callbacks in nearly every following number. Whether it’s Halward Pavus imploring him to come back and allow the ritual to proceed in the red flashback of “The Room Where It Happens”, or Sera imploring him to lose a little more Tevinter in “My Shot”, which is mostly, well-  
  
ACLASSI: Using the anal arrow shop as a metaphor for their friendship. Uh. Can I say ‘anal’ on public radio? I can’t remember if that was on the no-go list or not.  
  
HARDING: It’s a refrain repeated in many variations, often used to refer to Dorian, and one Dorian tosses out to other on only two occasions. One of those times went to the Iron Bull in the afterglow of the culmination of their mutual seduction in “The Story of Tonight”. The other goes out to Archon Senuthis, in the private audience granted shortly after his ascension to the throne at the end of “Meet Me Inside”.  
  
[PRE-RECORDED CLIP: “MEET ME INSIDE”]  
DORIAN: Mark my words, Archon Senuthis, you’ll want me back.  
  
HARDING: It’s the first and only time the Archon is referred to by his political name. In all other times, he’s called purely by his title, "the Archon", or by his given name, Rilienus.

ACLASSI: You hear a lot about Senuthis, growing up in Tevinter. Throughout most of history, he was painted as this complete monster, but in the last age or so, people have begun to teach him as someone who was less actively malicious and more obliviously hidebound.  
  
HARDING: And you ran with that interpretation?  
  
ACLASSI: Kind of. I knew that was an interpretation of events which had gained some traction, and that it would support the interpretation I’d come up with from reading Dorian’s correspondence about the guy.  
  
HARDING: Which was?  
  
ACLASSI: That there was a real chance that, at one point, Rilienus could have chosen differently, and been on the right side of history. That’s what Dorian believed. Well. Right up until he was literally stabbed in the back by the guy, at least.  
  
HARDING: Even with that act of near murder, it’s hard not to feel sorry for Rilienus.  
  
ACLASSI: In a lot of ways, he’s what Dorian’s family wanted in a son. He set aside his own desires for the ambitions and conventions society had deemed suitable for an Altus. He married a well-bred woman, produced an heir, and then focused on his political career. And he was very successful in that regard- he became Archon. And it made him, by all accounts, deeply unhappy.  
  
HARDING: Rilienus, in the play, at least, had once been like Dorian: a man who showed no reserve in either love or war. By the time we properly meet him in Act II, however, that man is gone, replaced with a man who is, like many in the Magisterium, nothing but reserve.  
  
ACLASSI: Rilienus is, more than Corypheus and the Venatori, and certainly more than Halward, a distillation of everything that was wrong with Tevinter at the time. It was a zero-sum game of mutual destruction, that pitted a class of people who could- and in many cases, would and did- kill people by the dozen to increase their own power, against everyone else, who outnumbered the first group by about one-hundred-and-fifty to one. He bought into that system. He, by its own measure, thrived in it.  
  
HARDING: And Dorian absolutely refused at every turn to play by that system’s rules.  
  
ACLASSI: Oh, it’s much worse than that. Dorian looked past that system and saw things worth saving. And that was also- has to be, for the play to work- Rilienus as well. He believed he could be saved too.


	2. Cast

HARDING: Hello! I’m Lindsay Harding, and you’re listening to TPR. Today, the second of a three-part special detailing the major musical phenomenon _Dorian_. Last time, we spoke with Manolo Aclassi about his decision to write about Dorian Pavus, a founding member of the Lucerni whose contributions to the Tevinter Reformation have been largely overlooked. Now, we’ll speak more about the cast of _Dorian_ , which has been notable for its diversity, and for allowing a number of relative unknowns to shine.  
  
MAHARIEL: I retired twenty years ago, and out of the blue, my old agent calls me. ‘You’re going to want to hear this one out’ he told me. ‘If nothing else, it’ll make you laugh.’  
  
HARDING: That’s Adaia Mahariel, who has most recently enjoyed a modest career as a reggae blues singer, and as an activist for trans rights. Two decades previously, however, she was a household name and star of Tevinter’s soap opera circuit when she retired from acting.  
  
MAHARIEL: It got tiring. A show would want to have a trans character, my name was the first that sprang to mind, and I would find myself playing the same two characters over and over again. So I quit. I said that I would only accept roles for cisgender women, and when there was outcry about that, I amended that to ‘or a human woman’.  
  
HARDING: In _Dorian_ she plays both- though not at the same time. Mahariel was dually cast: she plays Inquisitor Lavellan in the first act, and Maevaris Tilani in the second.  
  
MAHARIEL: These are arguably two of the most powerful women of the Dragon Age, and Tilani has always been a personal hero of mine. I was immensely flattered. Still, I was skeptical that this would be something would could sell to the audience. Actually, I asked him “Are you nuts?” And you know what he said?  
  
HARDING: What?  
  
MAHARIEL: “Ma’am, I’m both of them.”  
  
HARDING: Both of..?  
  
MAHARIEL: The nuts.  
  
HARDING: Mahariel was sold, and asked for a copy of the script. The rest is history in the making.

[[[COMMERCIAL BREAK]]]

HARDING: Welcome back, to part two of our three-part special about _Dorian_ , the musical phenomenon sweeping all of Thedas.  
  
MERAAD: I was really afraid that I was going to blow the audition, because someone tried to swipe a little old lady’s purse like, two blocks from the theater, so I chased the mugger down and brought her purse back, and there was a really tense minute where the cops thought _I’d_ stolen the purse. Luckily, the little old lady and the guy standing with her vouched for me. Double luckily, the guy standing with her was Manolo.  
  
HARDING: No. Really?  
  
MERAAD: Yes, really. And the minute he heard me say the word audition, he perked right up. ‘Please tell me you’ve come to try out for the part of the Iron Bull, please. You’re perfect.’ I told him to slow down, most people saved the adulations for the second date, and for a minute I thought the guy was going to kiss me.  
  
HARDING: Instead he hired you.  
  
MERAAD: Yep! The kissing came later- and came often.  
  
HARDING: Uh…  
  
MERAAD: I’m talking about in the musical! Get your mind out of the gutter!  
  
HARDING: The Iron Bull, as Dorian’s love interest, is a dashing romantic figure, and more than a match for Dorian’s passions. They are foils of one another in some ways, but they compliment each other much more than they contrast. Both of them are what the other has grown up being taught to fear and despise. Both of them grew up in societies which told them not to love. Both of them love fiercely anyway.  
  
MERAAD: I think my second favorite line that I’ve read in conjunction to _Dorian_ was in Tethras’ book about the Iron Bull. Manolo loaned me his copy, and in it he’d underlined the sentence “Dorian’s fondest insult for the Bull was ‘a terrible romantic sap’, and he could never say it without smiling in a terrible, romantic, sappy way.” That’s really what we went for, when it came to portraying their relationship.  
  
HARDING: What’s your favorite line, if I might ask?  
  
MERAAD: The stage directions towards the very end of “The Story of Tonight” which reads “The curtains close, and then catch on fire.”

[[[COMMERCIAL BREAK]]]

HARDING: And we’re back with the second part of our three-part special concerning the smash hit musical, _Dorian_. The cast is diverse, even more so it had been in reality: while Aclassi was scrupulous about not cross-casting when it came to nonhuman roles- that is, elves play elves, Qunari play Qunari, and so on and so forth- many human characters are played by nonhumans. The move was a very calculated one: it shines a light on the less than equal racial politics of modern day casting, and the way fully human cast members stand out from the crowd adds a dimension to the story that would otherwise be lacking. Divine Victoria I and Cassandra Pentaghast are played by Qunari, while Mother Giselle and Thom Rainier are played by dwarves, to name a few examples from the first act. Break-out star Revanni Tabris, who came to Qarinus to study at the Conservatory there under the special scholarship program for elves, is dually cast, playing Vivienne de Fer in the first act, and Calpernia in the second, both humans. Indeed, though it is not obvious at first glance, there are only two full-blooded humans in the main cast: Iachom Aurelian, who plays Halward Pavus, and Lucianus Odomi, who plays Rilienus.  
  
ODOMI: Archon Senuthis isn’t exactly his own character distinct from Rilienus, but he very much a public persona, a mask, which Rilienus uses to perform his duties. And his duties are very pre-ordained: preserve the status quo, by keeping the war going on Seheron, by putting down slave rebellions, and turning a blind eye to whatever blood magic his allies were using. I think that Rilienus might have hated it, but like so much else in Tevinter, he never thought to question it, and so he kept doing it anyway.  
  
HARDING: There’s been some debate recently about who the villain of _Dorian_ really is. Your character is the big contender for that title- do you agree?  
  
ODOMI: Mostly yes. Archon Senuthis is sort of a distillation of everything that was wrong with Tevinter at the time. He’s the bad guy, no question about it, from the failed Qunari invasion in “Guns and Ships” onwards. More than that- he’s a foil. If he represents the entrenched evil of the Imperium, Magister Pavus represents everything about it that could still be redeemed. And, beneath that, you have Rilienus and Dorian, who at one point were two lonely young men adrift in the same boat. If things had played out differently, maybe they would have left Tevinter and joined the Inquisition together. Or maybe, if Dorian hadn’t discovered the ritual in time- or had decided to let his father perform it- he would be the Archon we learn to regard as one of history’s villains.  
  
HARDING: Do you think Rilienus had that blood magic ritual performed on him?  
  
ODOMI: Well, historically I have no idea, but I haven’t been playing it that way, and I don’t think Manolo wrote it that way-  
  
HARDING: It’s just- for a minute there it sounded like you were implying-  
  
ODOMI: Oh no! That was just a comment on I think it would take to push Dorian into that role!  
  
HARDING: Oh!  
  
ODOMI: Yeah, it would basically have to be some combination of despair and blood magic, in my opinion at least. But the guy I’ve been playing all these months is very in love with Dorian, which makes it hard not to think highly of the guy.  
  
HARDING: Still in love with him?  
  
ODOMI: Yes.  
  
HARDING: Throughout it all.  
  
ODOMI: Yes.  
  
HARDING: Even when he stabs him.  
  
ODOMI: Especially then. Archon Senuthis hurt a lot of people, but stabbing Dorian was Rilienus’ one crime of passion.

 


	3. The Historians Have It

HARDING: Hello! I’m Lindsay Harding, and you’re listening to TPR. Today marks the first performance of _Dorian_ at the Aveline Theater here in Kirkwall, and also the broadcast of the final part of our three-part special about the smash hit musical, and to celebrate, we're commercial free. Joining me today to discuss the historical validity of the play are three historians: Hermione Pentaghast, Tethras scholar-  
  
PENTAGHAST: Hello!  
  
HARDING: -Kairon Oranus, Professor of Elvhen Studies at Kirkwall University-  
  
ORANUS: Hi!  
  
HARDING: -and Alexis Thalrassian, President of the Qarinus Historical Society.   
  
THALRASSIAN: That’s me!  
  
HARDING: Let’s start off with the obvious question: what, in your opinion, is the most glaring historical inaccuracy in the play?  
  
THALRASSIAN: I’d say, for me, it’s probably Archon Senuthis’ involvement in Dorian’s kidnapping. There’s very little evidence to suggest that he’d even heard about the plot until after it was over- and even then, he heard about the Iron Bull’s rescue before he heard about Dorian’s kidnapping.   
  
HARDING: Does he really know about it in the play? It seemed to me that Reynus was… kind of misleading.   
  
THALRASSIAN: I think that while “Right Hand Man” is made of ambiguities, when your shady advisor tells you he can take care of a problem magister and you give him the go ahead, the only reason you’d be surprised by a kidnapping is because you were expecting an assassination.   
  
HARDING: That’s certainly true. What else?

ORANUS: I think the one that stood out to me was having the slaves be the ones to poison Archon Senuthis, rather than that being the work of Magister Tilani. But I feel weird about saying it like that.   
  
HARDING: How so?  
  
ORANUS: Well, first of all from a purely historical perspective, it’s not a sure thing that Tilani _did_ kill him. She always maintained, until her dying days, that he just sort of happened to fall over dead and, like, I don’t know, the hand of Andraste reached down and stopped his heart or something and she just happened to be in the room at the time.   
  
HARDING: Sweet Maker!  
  
ORANUS: Yeah, it was generally accepted right from the moment it was announced that that was a lie. And secondly, I personally loved “Cabinet Battle #2”. It’s my favorite song out of the whole play.   
  
HARDING: Really?  
  
ORANUS: There’s just so much to love, right from the title! It puts it on equal footing with  the first cabinet battle, which is great because “Cabinet Battle #1” is a battle between politicians, people who hold the office of cabinet members. The only cabinets in “Cabinet Battle #2” are literal storage fixtures, because that number takes place in a kitchen and everyone singing it is a slave. Which another thing I love- slaves are omnipresent in every scene taking place in Tevinter, so “Helpless” in the first act, and the entirety of the second. And they’re extras- they sing as part of the chorus, or are silent set pieces, except in this number when they _are_ the cast. It’s incredible, actually, because though they aren’t named, you can pick out individuals. The woman who hands Dorian the missive from his mother in “Helpless” is now the Archon’s head cook. The girl who Reynus hits at the start of “Right Hand Man” is played by the same woman as the girl who first steps forward and says that she’s put poison in the Archon’s meal. I’ve only seen it twice-  
  
THALRASSIAN: Twice? Twice?  
  
PENTAGHAST: I’ve only seen it twice, he says.   
  
THALRASSIAN: How did you get tickets to see it _twice_?  
  
ORANUS: As I was saying, I’ve only seen it twice, I’m sure the rest of the people singing in “Cabinet Battle #2” have similar roles.   
  
PENTAGHAST: Fine, avoid the question.   
  
ORANUS: That’s what I’m doing!   
  
PENTAGHAST: Ugh.   
  
ORANUS: Anyway, the whole thing has an excellent dollop of dark comedy, right from how everyone, independent of one another, poisons Senuthis’ food, and they don’t realize this until it starts smoking, up until the very end where they grab a bunch of improvised weapons ranging from very sensible meat cleavers to the less useful tools like “a banana nailed to a stick” and “a very large wheel of cheese”.   
  
PENTAGHAST: You’ve clearly never been to Ostwick. That cheese is killer.   
  
THALRASSIAN: Which explains why that pun was dead on arrival.   
  
PENTAGHAST: Eugh.

ORANUS: Honestly, I don’t have any complaints about that bit of historical inaccuracy, it was very fun to watch.   
  
THALRASSIAN: Twice!  
  
HARDING: Getting back to the topic at hand…  
  
ORANUS: Actually, what kind of bothers me is the way the Lucerni’s involvement with the abolition movement is portrayed in general. That wasn’t a part of their platform until after Senuthis’ death. While Calpernia, as a former slave, had no patience for the practice, Tilani owned slaves right up until it became illegal and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Dorian himself didn’t question the practice until after he’d already joined the Inquisition.   
  
HARDING: Really?  
  
THALRASSIAN: Yeah, I can corroborate that.   
  
ORANUS: Look: these were reformers with some very high ideals. But they were also real people with flaws, who sometimes failed to live up to those ideals, and they were as much a product of the corrupt system they railed against as any of their opponents. I understand why that was all streamlined for _Dorian_ , but it makes me uncomfortable, when historical figures are placed on so high a pedestal that it’s hard to recognize that sometimes they got it wrong.   
  
HARDING: So you’re changing your answer, basically.  
  
ORANUS: …yeah. I guess I am.  
  
PENTAGHAST: Well, I don’t know how I’m meant to follow that!   
  
ORANUS: Ha!  
  
PENTAGHAST: From someone who managed to get tickets to see it twice using blood magic or something.   
  
ORANUS: A gentlemen never kisses and tells.   
  
PENTAGHAST: Pah!   
  
HARDING: What stuck out to you, Dr. Pentaghast?  
  
PENTAGHAST: The complete lack of reference to any member of House Alexius.   
  
HARDING: Okay, I’ll bite. Who are they?

PENTAGHAST: Gereon Alexius was Dorian’s mentor: Felix Alexius was his best friend. Dorian lived with them for several years, before the caravan Felix and his mother were travelling on was attacked by darkspawn. The mother died, Felix was blighted, and Dorian had an argument with Gereon that saw him being kicked out- and subsequently, he as good as moved in with Rilienus. Fast forward a few years: Dorian has left Tevinter behind him, and Gereon has been recruited into the Venatori, because they promised him a cure for his son. Now, Gereon attempted to recruit Dorian at around this time, and Felix apparently appealed to him for help stopping his father- and that is how Dorian ended up joining the Inquisition.   
  
HARDING: So he didn’t join for ethical reasons, then?  
  
PENTAGHAST: I don’t want to say that. Everything we know about him points to someone who would have joined the Inquisition purely as a matter of principle. But that connection made him valuable to the Inquisition, it provided him with an in, so to speak. More than that, his relationship with them shaped him into being the sort of man who would join the Inquisition on principle. The way Master Tethras describes Dorian’s relationship to Felix is as a mixture of brotherly affection and hero-worship. Now Felix was not a great mage- he was such a terrible mage that his own grandfather attempted to have him killed-  
  
HARDING: Wait, what.  
  
PENTAGHAST: And then his mother killed his grandfather, it was very dramatic. It might be worth mentioning that it was while living with House Alexius that Dorian’s relationship with his father became publically strained. It’s possible that he looked at Gereon and his relationship with his wife and saw someone who had defied his father for love, and had come out on top, but that’s pure speculation.  
  
HARDING: Right.   
  
PENTAGHAST: Anyway, Master Tethras was very convinced that Dorian looked up to Felix because he felt that Felix was in a lot of ways a better man than he was: more compassionate, more virtuous in the ways Dorian specifically valued. That all had a huge impact on who Dorian was, and the fact that they weren’t even mentioned was a little jarring to me.

HARDING: It sounds like it would be. Do you think- for all of you now- do you think that, despite these inaccuracies, that _Dorian_ has been good for getting more people interested in history?  
  
PENTAGHAST: Yes.   
  
ORANUS: Absolutely.   
  
THALRASSIAN: I have no doubt about it. I’ve already seen a difference when it comes to the questions we’re asked at the historical society.   
  
HARDING: Are there any questions that have taken you by surprise?  
  
THALRASSIAN: The questions about Maevaris Tilani, actually, though in hindsight I suppose it was inevitable.   
  
HARDING: How so?  
  
THALRASSIAN: Well, up until the premier of _Dorian_ , the general public had very little awareness that she’d been assigned male at birth. Partially this is because being trans is easily the least interesting thing about her, but mostly it’s because that aspect of her was subject to a lot of sanitization following the advent of the gender laws over two ages after her death.   
  
HARDING: Do you mind explaining gender laws for our listeners?  
  
THALRASSIAN: Not at all! Anyway, after the Second Qunari Invasion of the mainland was foiled, there was a real push from those territories that had remained independent from the Qun to ‘recivilize’ the people who had been living under the Qun. What became known as the gender laws, passed in 12:61, were a large part of that. One of the things they did was to criminalize those assigned male at birth presenting in any way other than masculine, and those assigned female in any way other than feminine, as a counter to the traditional Qunari designation of aqun-athlok for people who would do otherwise. Those laws were only very recently repealed in Tevinter, which is why people watching _Dorian_ today are so confused as to why Maevaris wasn’t living in constant fear of arrest. It wasn’t illegal back then- it wasn’t even remotely accepted either, but it wasn’t illegal. The fact that she could do something which is today a very recent, hard-won victory, back when you could literally own people, can be a bit hard to swallow. There’s a public perception that society progresses in a linear fashion, and once a right has been won it can’t ever been denied. That’s not true at all.   
  
ORANUS: Thank you for being the one to spell that out.   
  
THALRASSIAN: As the only one here who plans to go back to Tevinter someday, I almost regret saying it. Almost. Next question, please.

HARDING: It’s the last question, actually.  
  
THALRASSIAN: Oh!  
  
HARDING: In your opinions, why has the story of Dorian Pavus been largely forgotten until now?   
  
ORANUS: Politics.  
  
THALRASSIAN: Yeah, politics definitely. Dorian operated by exaggerating his reputation as a hotheaded radical, and making it work for the Lucerni’s advantage. He knew that he wouldn’t be removed from office: both Archons recognized his value in keeping an open channel with the Inquisition, they knew that he was important in terms of fighting the Qunari, and for them to keep that asset they had to keep him in office, which freed him up to be very annoying. He was an instigator: he would start speaking on the Magisterium’s floor, and the Magisterium would grind to a halt. The Lucerni could use him to delay or derail bills they didn’t want passed into law, and after listening to him rant for six hours, whatever proposal they actual did wish to put forth sounded very moderate and rational. There was no need for that after Senuthis’ death. His brand of politicking would have been very counterproductive to the Reformation.   
  
ORANUS: Honestly? I think that we shouldn’t overlook the fact that Dorian was known to be a homosexual, and one who refused to marry and produce an heir on those grounds. And, while it might not have been known, rumors that he had a Qunari lover persisted right from the moment he returned to Tevinter. Many of Lucerni, like Dorian, may have been considered deficient in some way, but they still came from a society that was deeply homophobic, and at war with the Qunari. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that many people were made uncomfortable enough by it that it influenced their decision to drop him.   
  
PENTAGHAST: I disagree. I mean, I’m sure politics had a lot to do with how his story has been dropped from the history books, but I think that his retirement from the public eye was a personal decision.  
  
HARDING: How so?  
  
PENTAGHAST: Before either of them had much in the way of political power, Maevaris Tilani and Dorian Pavus were friends. And in a lot of ways, I think Tilani understood what Dorian was doing, by insisting that the Bull not join him in Tevinter, and what a sacrifice that was. She’d lost her own lover many years before, after all. I think we have to take into account the fact that it was hard for Dorian to be away from the Bull. It was hard, and Tilani understood that when she encouraged Dorian to keep his head down while they were dealing with the fallout of Senuthis’ assassination.   
  
HARDING: So what are you saying here?  
  
PENTAGHAST: I’m saying that we all know now how Dorian’s story ended: he retired to a villa in Antiva with his lover, and there they lived until they were well into their nineties. His role in the Reformation had become obscure, but he had played it, and had lived to see the fruits of his labor realized. I think that- well…  
  
HARDING: “That Could Be Enough”?  
  
PENTAGHAST: Yes, exactly. I think it was enough, and I think he chose it to be enough. That was the ending Dorian wanted for his story. It might not have happened the way he imagined that it would, but his country had been saved, and he could live with the man he loved without fear.


	4. Playbill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A list of songs appearing in DORIAN: The Musical.

** ACT ONE: **

  1. YOU’LL BE BACK



Opening number: The rebel mages are on their way to join the Inquisition: Dorian is requesting permission to join, stating his hatred for the Venatori, and his belief that Tevinter can be saved from itself.

  1. BLOW US ALL AWAY



The celebration of the closing of the Breach at Haven is rudely interrupted by Red Templar, Corypheus, and an archdemon. Rocks fall, and the Inquisitor is crowned. It seems like their work is just beginning.

  1. SATISFIED



Dorian rails against the way he feels he constantly needs to prove himself to be a decent person (particularly to Blackwall and Mother Giselle, and in his perception, Vivienne and the Bull), even given the reputation of Tevinter, the continued shittery of the Venatori. Would they be satisfied if he did use blood magic to turn them into frogs? If he’d come with a retinue of scarred downtrodden slaves? No, and neither would he!

  1. THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS



Dorian meets with his father. It goes about as well as you’d expect. Dorian calls his father out on his crimes- chief among them hypocrisy- and once that emotional pus has been expelled is lead off stage. Halward Pavus does not appear in the entire rest of the play.

  1. WHAT COMES NEXT?



Post becoming Tal-Vashoth, the Bull asks Dorian what it’s like to leave your people, marking the first time Dorian does not feel compelled to act antagonistically towards him.

  1. MY SHOT



Sera and Dorian have their friendship song, using the arrows she’s allegedly keeping up his ass as their starting point. Sera teases Dorian about the Bull, and reveals her feelings for Dagna in the process.

  1. THE STORY OF TONIGHT



In a number which is part tango and part striptease, Dorian and the Bull hook up. (Note: The curtains which catch fire at the end of this number aren’t the real curtains, but rather mock-ups made of flashpaper.)

  1. YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT



Dorian swears his loyalty to the Inquisition.

  1. NON-STOP



A summation of the various deeds done by the Inquisitor: defeating the Wardens at Adamant, ensuring that Celene remains Empress, Briala steering her policies from the side, liberating the Emprise du Lion, defeating the undead at Crestwood, and so on and so forth.

  1. THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN



The defeat of Corypheus, and a summation of the changes wrought by the Inquisition.

  1. HISTORY HAS ITS EYES ON YOU



Vivienne calls Dorian out on the coming conflict: he wants to return to Tevinter and save it from itself, but he also loves the Bull, and the Bull would suffer if he followed Dorian home. Vivienne has grown fond of the beast: she would be very displeased if Dorian hurt him in any way.

  1. HELPLESS



Dorian returns to Tevinter. It’s worse than he remembers, and he has no reputation that would allow him to enact change effectively from within the system. He just feels like he’s beating his head against a brick wall and there’s no chance of making it fall.

  1. A WINTER’S BALL



Dorian returns to the South as an ambassador, planning to stay for a very long time. At first, things are great: he reunites with Sera, the Inquisitor, and the Bull, and gets an apology from Mother Giselle. And then shit starts hitting the fan and he gets word that his father has died, so he has to go back, and soon.

  1. WAIT FOR IT



Dorian wonders if he shouldn’t stay for a while, what with the Inquisitor’s arm and her boyfriend trying to destroy the world and all. He half wants to be talked into staying. He is also concerned about what the distance will mean for his relationship with the Bull. The Inquisitor tells him that she believes in him, and that he should speak with his boyfriend.

  1. THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH



Bull and Dorian share a private moment, and agree to have a long-distance relationship.

  1. YOU’LL BE BACK (REPRISE)



Dorian’s friends and found-family bid him goodbye and good luck, and he makes the long journey back to Tevinter.

** ACT TWO: **

  1. FARMER REFUTED



A Farmer from Nessum comes before the Senate with a list of grievances. He’s mocked, has his list torn from him, and is only saved from worse because Dorian intervenes- which only turned the ridicule on himself.

  1. SATISFIED (REPRISE)



The Magisterium won’t take Dorian seriously because they view him as a hotheaded radical. Well then. It’ll be very satisfying to give them exactly that sort of person to deal with. They won’t be satisfied with his blunt insults and idealistic calls for sweeping reforms, but Dorian will be satisfied watching them choke on it.

  1. HISTORY HAS ITS EYES ON YOU (REPRISE)



Dorian and Calpernia meet. Calpernia is in need of an Altus on her side, Dorian needs some way of connecting with the common folk the Magisterium are so disparaging of. They find their goals and views to be surprisingly aligned: and they’re alike in their lack of patience, and their passion for Tevinter. Both of them are aware that they’re sitting on something historic, and are optimistic as to what shape it’ll take.

  1. NON-STOP (REPRISE)



The Lucerni manage, despite all odds, to push through several important reforms: allowing slaves to testify against their owners, putting in place harsher and more effective ways to punish malificarum, giving the Imperial Templars more teeth. They manage it using Tilani’s connections with Orzammar, Calpernia’s ever-growing threat of a populist uprising, and Dorian’s force of personality. The more reactionary members of the Magisterium are very put out.

  1. TAKE A BREAK



Dorian and the Bull take a small vacation at their villa.

  1. GUNS AND SHIPS



The Qunari attempt to invade the Tevinter mainland. They are beaten back, but not before the death of Archon Radonis.

  1. CABINET BATTLE #1



Following the death of Archon Radonis and all his obvious heirs, the Magisterium must appoint a new leader. With Dorian’s unexpected support, Rilienus wins the bid.

  1. I KNOW HIM



Dorian assures Mae that Rilienus will be a good choice for the Lucerni to back: he’s seems moderate, but Dorian knows him. He’s not happy with the way things are either. He must want them to change.

  1. MEET ME INSIDE



Rilienus is confirmed as the new Archon Senuthis. Dorian goes to discuss the Lucerni agenda, only to be shot down. Rilienus doesn’t want change, he wants stability: the two are mutually exclusive in his mind.

  1. RIGHT HAND MAN



Archon Senuthis meets with his advisors. They all blame Dorian for their problems- with a great deal of reach in some cases. One in particular, Reynus, stays late and offers to fix the problem for him.

  1. STAY ALIVE



Dorian gets a message to the Bull out as he’s in the process of being kidnapped. The Bull takes the Chargers and rides to his rescue, leaving a trail of dead magisters and freed slaves in his wake, imploring Dorian all the while to stay alive.

  1. WE KNOW



Mae, Calpernia, and the Bull talk about Dorian’s kidnapping. They’re sure the Archon is involved. They’re also sure that they can’t touch the Archon, and it’s possible that Dorian wouldn’t believe them. They just need to locate whoever he used as an intermediary to tie up a loose end…

  1. TEN DUEL COMMANDMENTS



Dorian goes back to Minrathous and challenges Reynus to a duel, exposing his misdeeds in the process, and fanning the flames of rebellion- already fanned by the slaves freed during Dorian’s rescue. Reynus is killed, but that only incites a riot.

  1. ONE LAST TIME



The Inquisitor would like to invite Dorian back down to the South to help beat up her ex-boyfriend. His current boyfriend will also be attending, as will Sera and Dagna. The Inquisitor is physically absent from this number: her voice is heard over the sending crystal in pre-recorded form.

Dorian returns, finds himself holding a pass with Bull’s help, and also finds that Sera and Dagna are getting married, and he’s the best man.

  1. BEST OF WIVES AND BEST OF WOMEN



Dorian’s best man speech at Dagna and Sera’s wedding.

  1. THE WORLD WAS WIDE ENOUGH



The Bull and Dorian get nostalgic for their days as Inquisition agents- for the days when they could be together without worry about the political implications, and they could just be together.

  1. SAY NO TO THIS



Rilienus is on the cusp of drastic action: Nessum is in revolt. The traditional response would be to send in the bulk of the Tevinter army of decimate that population. Dorian pleads with him to listen to them, to attempt negotiations, warning of further unrest should he be ignored. Rilienus does ignore him.

  1. IT’S QUIET UPTOWN



Dorian and Calpernia visit Nessum after the massacre. The chorus of extras lay draped over the stage as bodies. The song itself is mostly a vaguely-poetic recitation of statistic. A lot of people died here- a lot of civilians, a lot of kids.

  1. WHAT’D I MISS



For some odd reason, the Nessum Massacre did not pacify the unrest. If anything, rioting and rebellion have increased, and are only gaining speed. Rilienus did everything right, did everything he was supposed to, ignored his own desires, his own conscience, his own dreams. He sacrificed it all: why aren’t things falling into place?

  1. HURRICANE



Bull has suffered a career-ending arrow to the knee. Dorian is upset- distraught, really- but can’t go to him because of everything else that’s happening. He attempts to reason with the Archon, who has also reached a state of emotional distress, and as Dorian turns to the crowd gathered outside his palace- that is to say, gestures to the audience- something in Rilienus snaps, and he stabs Dorian, who falls into the orchestra pit.

  1. CABINET BATTLE #2



Following Dorian’s stabbing, the slaves of Archon Senuthis reach their tipping point. It’s too much on top of the riots and unrest. If their master would stab a magister in public, what might he do to them behind closed doors?

The song starts out with all the kitchen hands poisoning the meal, independent of one another, a fact which is discovered when two poisons react badly to one another and cause the quail to emit noxious fumes. They decide how to deal with that without it getting back upstairs that murder is brewing. The maids/wait staff catch on anyway, bringing back news: Dorian’s not dead, Magister Tilani is dining with the Archon, there’s smoke in the distance, the Archon is getting notes from the Legate constantly, it looks like parts of the military have mutinied. The kitchen staff agree on how to best poison the Archon. Once they get word of their success back (“Good news! He’s dead!”) they grab makeshift weapons and go to join the fight.

  1. BURN



The rioting grows into a revolution. The Archon is dead: long live Tevinter!

  1. WHO LIVES, WHO DIES, WHO TELLS YOUR STORY



Dorian recovers at the villa with the Bull: Maevaris keeps him apprised of the Lucerni’s successes and advises him to rest up, to keep his head down, to stay in Antiva. Dorian decides to retire. The curtain closes, and Varric recounts his legacy: a nation saved from its own corruption, apprentices who inherited their villa and their names, and two lives spent together.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that it's not good form to have such a difference in the number of songs between each act- just know that many of the Act II songs are short and a lot of the Act I songs are long.


End file.
